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Same Beds, Different Dreams?Charitable Foundations and Newsroom Independence in the Global South

BY ANYA SCHIFFRIN

February 2017

Same Beds, Different Dreams?Charitable Foundations and Newsroom Independence in the Global South

FEBRUARY 2017ABOUT CIMA

The Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA), at the National Endowment for Democracy, works to strengthen the support, raise the visibility, and improve the effectiveness of independent media development throughout the world. The center provides information, builds networks, conducts research, and highlights the indispensable role independent media play in the creation and development of sustainable democracies. An important aspect of CIMA’s work is to research ways to attract additional U.S. private sector interest in and support for international media development.

CIMA convenes working groups, discussions, and panels on a variety of topics in the field of media development and assistance. The center also issues reports and recommendations based on working group discussions and other investigations. These reports aim to provide policymakers, as well as donors and practitioners, with ideas for bolstering the effectiveness of media assistance.

Center for International Media Assistance National Endowment for Democracy

1025 F STREET, N.W., 8TH FLOOR

WASHINGTON, DC 20004

PHONE: (202) 378-9700

FAX: (202) 378-9407

EMAIL: [email protected]

URL: http://cima.ned.org

Mark NelsonSENIOR DIRECTOR

Nicholas BenequistaPUBLICATION EDITOR

ADVISORY COUNCIL FOR THE CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL MEDIA ASSISTANCE

Stephen Fuzesi, Jr.William A. GalstonSuzanne GarmentEllen HumeJerry HymanAlex S. JonesShanthi KalathilSusan King

Craig LaMayWilliam OrmeDale PeskinAdam Clayton Powell IIIMonroe E. PriceRep. Adam SchiffMarguerite SullivanRichard Winfield

ContentsIntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Growth in Private Donors, Attuned to the Power of Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

New Financial Arrangements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Same Beds: The Shared Interests Between Foundations and Newsrooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Different Dreams: The Blurry Lines that Pose a Threat to Newsroom Independence . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Towards Codes of Conduct and Best Practices . . . . . . . . 22

Conclusion: Risks and Opportunities for Media Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anya Schiffrin is the director of Technology, Media and Advocacy specialization at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. Her most recent book is the edited collection Global Muckraking: 100 years of investigative reporting from around the world (New Press, 2014). Columbia University’s online course based on the book will launch in January 2017.1 She is a member of the advisory board of Open Society Foundation’s Program on Independent Journalism and the Natural Resource Governance Institute and in spring 2016 joined the Global Board of the Open Society Foundation.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Research by Danfeng Wu, Susanna De Martino and Francesca Edgerton. Special thanks to Katherine Sullivan for her research and writing for the section on best practices and to Anamaria Lopez for her review of the literature.

Interviews by Anya Schiffrin, Anca Matioc and Kristen Grennan.

The following people provided helpful suggestions and support: Brigitte Alfter, Rodney Benson, Prue Clarke, Tom Glaisyer, Tim Isgitt, George Lugalambi, Matteo Pellegrini, Nick Lemann, Mark Nelson, Tara Susman-Pena, Soomin Seo and Jo Weir.

Editing: Andrea Gurwitt, Beth Kwon.

We’d like to thank all the interviewees who generously gave their ideas and time, and Dean Pavlakis for offering his historical perspective.

No foundation money was received for this report. The research for this report was partly funded by a Dean’s research grant from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Cover images: © Nicholas Benequista

1S a m e B e d s , D i f fe re n t D re a m s ? C h a r i t a b l e Fo u n d a t i o n s a n d N ew s ro o m I n d e p e n d e n c e i n t h e G l o b a l S o u t h #mediadev

The money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has come

with a few conditions: the Mail & Guardian would use the money to

cover health topics, it would expand its health coverage to other

African countries, and the reporters on the health desk would pursue

“solutions-based journalism.”2

None of this, however, was an imposition. On the contrary, Malan

and the editor-in-chief at the time, Nic Dawes, had been working for

two years to attract funding to support their ambitions for a health

journalism desk with similar ambitions.

“Both parties were interested from the start,” Malan said. “If anything,

it was more of us building a relationship with Gates and seeing if we had

mutual interests and goals.”

The Mail & Guardian is not the only major southern media outlet

accepting money from private foundations to bolster its reporting on a

topic. Al Jazeera in 2012 accepted $1 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates

Foundation to produce a series of documentaries on infectious diseases

in Africa. La Silla Vacía, a popular on-line news source in Colombia, has

received grants from the Ford Foundation to write investigative stories

about the extractives industry, and from the National Endowment of

Democracy for coverage intended to bolster awareness of the country’s

Victim’s Law.3 As these and other examples in this report attest, private

foundations and media houses are increasingly entering into what might

be described as a marriage of convenience.

Private charities, including several foundations that have been funded

with money from new technological industries are relying increasingly

Introduction

As recently as 2011, South Africa’s leading newspaper, the Mail & Guardian,

did not have a full-time health reporter. Back then, Mia Malan was the

publication’s part-time health reporter; the newspaper could only afford

to pay her a retainer. But in January 2013 things began to change: with funding

from the German government, Malan started a health desk consisting of Mia

and two junior reporters. Then, with a 2015 contribution of $500,000 to the

Mail & Guardian from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Malan’s health

journalism desk, known as Bheksisa, became the largest editorial section at the

paper, with more staff than even the political desk and ten freelance reporters

who are based in countries across Africa.

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Private foundations and media houses are

increasingly entering into what might be described as a

marriage of convenience.

2 C E N T E R F O R I N T E R N AT I O N A L M E D I A A S S I S TA N C E C I M A . N E D . O R G

on media partnerships as a way to achieve their philanthropic goals.

Media houses in need of resources, and in many cases supportive of

broad donor objectives, are taking the money. What happens in that

relationship is the subject of this report. Is it a case of “same beds,

different dreams?” Is this marriage of convenience a happy one? What

can be done to make sure that journalism’s independence is respected

and that independent media is being cultivated and sustained?

Direct versus indirect forms of influenceIt is important to note how these arrangements differ from the more

indirect strategies that foundations have used to influence the agendas

of news organizations. Private foundations fund topical training

courses—for instance on health journalism or on human rights—with

the expectation that participating journalists will be more likely to cover

these issues as a result. And foundations have routinely funded social

movements and advocacy groups to carry out media strategies and

communication campaigns. These techniques, however, are distinct from

the practice of directly underwriting news content.

This trend and its important implications for journalists and the public

have previously been examined,4 but primarily with a focus on non-profit

funding for outlets in the Global North, such as National Public Radio in

the United States, or the UK’s Guardian. This report instead examines

the nature of this relationship in media houses in the Global South.

Precise figures on how much private donors spend in developing

countries to underwrite the production of news or new-type content

on their priority topic areas is difficult to parse from the budget data

they release, in part because most of these monies often flow first to

an intermediary organization. Still, there are some sources of indicative

data on this phenomenon.

Media Impact Funders is an organization that collects information on

media-related grants by hundreds of foundations. An analysis of their

data, available freely online, indicates that from 2010 to 2014, about

23 percent of private grants intended to support “journalism, news, and

information” were channeled into initiatives that directly underwrite

the production of journalistic content on a topic of importance to the

donor.5 Another 27 percent of those initiatives sought to influence news

agendas indirectly, as in the case of trainings for journalists on a specific

issue, like malaria.

An analysis by Media Impact Funders, available

freely online, indicates that from 2010 to 2014,

about 23 percent of private grants intended to support

“journalism, news, and information” were channeled into initiatives that directly

underwrite the production of journalistic content on a topic

of importance to the donor.


A question of independenceThe issues raised by the non-profit funding of news outlets in the Global

South are at once familiar and distinct to those raised in relation to

this arrangement in the Global North. Private foundations that support

media in order to change the world have views about how journalism

can make the world a better place, what the world’s problems are and, in

some cases, what solutions should be implemented. By using journalism

to promote coverage of health or governance or corruption or elections

or criminal justice, these foundations are making decisions for all of us

about what problems the public should know about and even pressure

governments to fix. That involvement in agenda-setting and public policy

affects everyone, regardless of where they live, and so it matters how

donors and journalists negotiate and implement such agreements.

As in the Global North, some of the Southern outlets receiving funds

from private foundations are often new enterprises, frequently digital

start-ups, which may not have many of the traditional organizational

structures that in the past were aimed at safeguarding editorial

independence. The old days of the advertising sales department being

on a different floor or in a different building in the newsroom are long

gone. Native advertising, digital content, the quest for clicks have all

blurred the distinction between paid content and news.

But media houses in the Global South also face unique circumstances.

They are often operating in more restrictive environments, with

fewer protections against threat and intimidation by the state or

powerful individuals. Their financial situation may also have a unique

complication. Southern news outlets are confronting the challenge of

finding new business models that can follow audiences, and advertising

dollars, to online and mobile platforms, but from a disadvantaged

Sample of Private Donor Funding for Journalism: Coded by its Direct and Indirect Influence Over News Agendas

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 PERCENT

Direct $578,429 $1,863,929 $4,453,780 $1,660,840 $1,413,715 23%

Indirect $776,483 $1,879,497 $3,302,671 $1,772,635 $4,172,199 27%

Intended influence on news not clear

$172,179 $662,302 $1,021,875 $173,556 $138,104 5%

No discernible influence on news agendas

$622,442 $2,598,465 $5,703,785 $6,331,465 $4,538,821 45%

Total (of projects sampled) $2,149,533 $7,004,193 $14,482,111 $9,938,496 $10,262,839 100%

As in the Global North, some of the Southern outlets receiving funds from private foundations are often new

enterprises, frequently digital start-ups, which

may not have many of the traditional organizational structures that in the past

were aimed at safeguarding editorial independence.


financial position in media markets where audience numbers and

advertising revenue were already marginal. That said, the rapid

expansion of education and relatively fast-growing economies found

in China, South Africa and Brazil—for instance—have been a boon to

some Southern media outlets, though that too can be a challenge when

news outlets are growing their staff without proper attention to ethics

and professionalism.

The trend also has implications in the Global South for support to

media development, a sub-sector of international development that

marshals resources to bolster independent and plural media as an end

in itself. Media development, however, is often distinguished from media

for development, which has been defined as “the strategic use of the

media as a tool for delivering positive change in individuals’ knowledge,

attitude and practice in order to achieve development results.”6 Such

arrangements as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has with the

Mail & Guardian blur the line between these two fields, offering an

opportunity to explore the question of whether the objectives are

mutually compatible.

To shed light on how the relationships between private foundations

and media outlets are working in developing countries, we conducted a

series of interviews and surveys between fall 2015 and spring 2016. In

total, we conducted 52 interviews with people involved in these kinds

of arrangements, some by phone and some by person, and we received

completed surveys from 49 respondents, including private foundations,

intermediaries and grantees. We wanted to find out how the different

groups—foundations, intermediaries, and grantees—understand and

navigate questions of editorial independence, what shared practices or

guidelines, if any, are in place and what media outlets can learn from

other institutions that take foundation funding but try to keep to their

core missions. We found that foundations, intermediaries, and grantees

are generally getting along well in these arrangements, and frequently

working towards a shared mission, suggesting that this arrangement

may endure. However, these arrangements are also cause for some

concern. Media outlets are in some cases reshaping their activities to

attract donor funding, and with scant guidelines or editorial policies

to ensure editorial independence from donor influence. This report

concludes with some considerations for best practices and codes of

conduct that can help to ensure that such independence is safeguarded.

Media outlets are in some cases reshaping

their activities to attract donor funding, and

with scant guidelines or editorial policies to ensure editorial independence from

donor influence.


Overview of Findings■■ New money, new financial arrangements: A new generation of

private foundations, often funded with money from Silicon Valley,

is leading a growing trend of donors underwriting news content

on topics the foundations care about such as health, education

and corruption. Though this arrangement has been discussed in

the Global North, this report sheds light on how media houses in

the Global South have also begun to accept grants with similar

conditions, and have in some cases begun to shape their coverage in

order to attract support.

■■ A mutually beneficial, if ambiguous, relationship: The report finds

that both philanthropic foundations and media houses often express

satisfaction with how such arrangements are mutually beneficial

and based on shared values. But the interviews also suggested

that perceptions vary markedly between the donors and media

houses, and even within media houses, as to what constitutes the

difference between acceptable involvement and interference. We

found that donor involvement at times remains limited to guidance

on what topics should be covered, but in some cases extends to

story ideas and suggestions for which sources should be included

in the reporting.

■■ A recognized need for formal guidelines and firewalls: There does

not seem to be universally agreed upon standards of behavior or

processes to govern these arrangements, nor much consideration

for building institutional firewalls between fundraising and editorial.

Indeed, media houses surveyed for this report seldom have written

editorial guidelines about what kind of involvement from donors is

acceptable. That said, there is widespread agreement that stronger

editorial guidelines and better institutional partitioning would be

welcome; this report presents some best practices from other fields

to stimulate a conversation of how this might be accomplished for

donors and recipient media outlets.

Interviews also suggested that perceptions vary

markedly between the donors and media

houses, and even within media houses, as to

what constitutes the difference between

acceptable involvement and interference.


MethodologyIn order to gain a more complete understanding of the relationships

involved in donor-funded media in the Global South, we interviewed

private donors to media, media grantees and intermediary

organizations, i.e., those that receive grants and then carry out activities

such as training, grant giving or underwriting stories on specific topic.

We designed three different surveys and supplemented the surveys

with interviews and background reading. We designed one survey

for organizations that give grants, one survey for media outlets that

receive grant funding and one survey for the organizations we called

intermediaries. A total of 49 people filled out the surveys: 11 identified

themselves as charitable foundations, 25 as grantees and 13 as

intermediaries. We also conducted interviews with all of the survey

respondents and did some background interviews with others who did

not fill out a survey, but who spoke to us.

The survey for charitable foundations had 28 questions, the survey for

intermediaries had 36 questions, and the survey for grantees had 51

questions. Each person we interviewed was given the opportunity to

review his or her comments for accuracy before publication and given

the option to remain anonymous.

We focused our research on organizations overseas. We knew of the

existence of other recent studies of media philanthropy in the United

States, including one funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,7

and one funded by the Open Society Foundation.8 We carried out

interviews in Colombia, Mexico, Uganda and South Africa between

October 2015 and January 2016 as well as interviews over Skype in

early 2016 with respondents from foundations, journalism outlets

and intermediary organizations from a number of countries including

Austria, Denmark, Ecuador, Guatemala, Kenya, The Netherlands,

Norway and Peru.

The aim of the study was to gather qualitative information about

the processes of grant giving, the perceptions that donors and

recipients have of their relationship, and the effect it has on editorial

independence. We wanted to see if there are guiding principles and

practices that organizations in different countries have in common.

We also wanted to know how non-media organizations that receive

earmarked donor money (for example, universities or the World Bank)

find ways to keep donor agendas and interests from distorting the main

missions of the recipient organizations.

The aim of the study was to gather qualitative

information about the processes of grant

giving, the perceptions that donors and

recipients have of their relationship, and

the effect it has on editorial independence.


The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which was founded in 1994, and was

the first of this cohort, is now the largest charitable foundation in the world,

rivaling governments for its influence in international development. Two

founders of eBay, Jeff Skoll and Pierre Omidyar, established their foundations

in 1990 and 2004, respectively. In 2004, Google set up its charitable arm, and

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, in 2015 established

the most recent addition to the roster, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

Partly owing to the funds flowing from these new foundations, total

giving from US charitable foundations rose from $30.3 billion in 2003 to

$54.7 billion in 2013, a 55 percent rise over a mere decade, according to

the Foundation Center, an organization dedicated to collecting information

about philanthropy.9 And this fast-growing source of support is more

likely to be directed to media-related activities than the resources from

governmental and multi-lateral donors.

Just 0.5 percent of official development assistance, the resources given

internationally by bi-lateral and multi-lateral donors, goes to supporting the

media,10 compared to the 2.2 percent of giving that US private donors have

recently dedicated to media support.11 And there are signs that this is even

growing: from 2009 to 2011, foundation support for journalism within the

United States alone rose by 21 percent.12

Not only do these funders spend an estimated hundreds of million dollars

a year on supporting media, but there has been a shift in how they support

Growth in Private Donors, Attuned to the Power of Media

Charity from private donations has risen steadily over the last decade,

bolstered largely by new foundations established with profits from

technological industries in Silicon Valley. Furthermore, these private

foundations appear to be channeling more and more of their support to media,

and increasingly with the aim of getting their priorities to the top of public agendas.

Bill and Melinda Gates; Jeff Skoll; Pierre Omidyar; Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg

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Partly owing to the funds flowing from

these new foundations, total giving from US

charitable foundations rose from $30.3 billion in 2003 to $54.7 billion

in 2013, a 55 percent rise over a mere decade.

— FOUNDATION CENTER


media.13 Instead of paying to support media development generally and

funding equipment, training and education in ethics and news gathering,

private foundations are increasingly underwriting content with a view

towards influencing the kinds of subjects that get covered.14 This marks the

distinction often made between support to media development—supporting

media because it is a public good, essential to democracy or part of creating

an open society—and media for development, which refers to strategic

engagement with the media in order to support objectives on issues such as

health, education or governance. In a recent survey of 18 private and public

donors, support for content production was found to be universal (at some

level of priority) among the private donors,15 but only prioritized by a few of

the public donors, as illustrated in the following table.

Private donors are ear-marking funds for stories about gender, human rights,

agriculture, health or corruption or they fund journalism because they want

to improve accountability and governance. Five of the 13 donors we talked to

for this study said that more than 50 percent of the media-related grants their

organization gives are intended to promote/support coverage of designated

subject areas. We also spoke to what we call “intermediary groups,” which

are organizations that take donor money and then re-grant it to media

outlets or organize trainings or other activities related to journalism. Every

one of the intermediary groups that we surveyed said “yes” when asked the

question “do your donors have views as to what kind of news they want your

grantees to cover?”

We also reviewed the grants available from the Media Impact Funders

database case by case to ascertain which topics private donors were

Private Funding for News Content by Topic

$12,000,000

$10,000,000

$8,000,000

$6,000,000

$4,000,000

$2,000,000

$0Development

$4,407,363

$590,000

$2,887,181

$10,318,371

$966,914

$3,767,884

$90,000

$1,931,502

Environment Gender Governance Health Other Education Social Issues

Private donors are ear-marking funds

for stories about gender, human rights,

agriculture, health or corruption or they

fund journalism because they want to

improve accountability and governance.


pushing in projects that involved either direct or indirect influence over

news agendas. The results, presented in the table above, corroborate the

finding from our interviews that governance issues are a top priority for

private donors. Private donors are supporting journalists to be watchdogs

on government corruption and corporate abuse, to hold service providers

to account and to be defenders of human rights.

“Philanthropy in the United States has changed in the last 10–20 years.

The new donors are much more into metrics and fastidious tracking and

seem more caffeinated about what their money should support, expecting

to see measurable impact as soon as possible. In the nineties in the

context of supporting research and public service journalism by respected

organizations, foundations seemed more inclined to give general support

grants. These new foundation donors appear to be more wary and resistant

to ‘unrestricted funding’” said Charles Lewis, a professor of journalism at

the American University School of Communication in Washington DC, and

the founding executive editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop.

Arriving at an accurate estimate of how much money is being spent on

media assistance is beyond the scope of this paper. Funding sources

abound. Governments in countries such as Australia, China, the

Netherlands, Sweden and the UK fund media as part of their foreign aid

or development budgets. Private philanthropists fund media in many

countries (Australia, Brazil and India, to name a few). In 2012, the 29

member countries of the Development Assistance Committee allocated

more than 400 million US dollars of their official development assistance

to media support.16 But this does not include the many millions spent by

private foundations and philanthropists. In addition to the new private US

donors, there are also philanthropists in developing countries who support

media or launch their own publications. According to Rodney Benson, in

the United States “about $150 million per year is currently being invested

specifically in news organizations by foundations.”17

In some cases the foundations themselves don’t know how much their

entity spends as the parent organization often has several departments

funding media under a number of different categories.18 For example,

USAID funds media, but so do different parts of the US State Department.

The World Bank’s support for media is spread among many different

departments and programs, ranging from governance to civil society

to private sector development. An internal study by the Open Society

Foundations found that in 2016 its budget to support journalism totaled

$24.08 million, of which the Program on Independent Journalism was

responsible for only about $12.51 million. And there are many private

foundations (and bi-lateral donors) that do not reveal any information

about the size of their grant making in this field.

“Philanthropy in the United States has changed

in the last 10–20 years. The new donors are much

more into metrics and fastidious tracking and seem more caffeinated

about what their money should support, expecting to see measurable impact

as soon as possible.”

— CHARLES LEWIS, American University School

of Communications


One aspect of the recent openness to new financial arrangements is

the willingness of legacy media outlets such as National Public Radio or

El Pais or The Mail & Guardian or the Guardian to take grant money that

supports editorial priorities designated by the donor or which underwrites

coverage of certain topics. Other media outlets, such as The New York

Times, regularly publish stories provided by reputable news organizations

funded by private donors. Stories by foundation-funded investigative

reporting outlets—ProPublica, the Marshall Project and the Pulitzer

Center on Crisis Reporting, to name a few—now appear regularly in legacy

media outlets while many more outlets have been willing to join the

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, famous for publishing

the Panama Papers.

Financial difficulties often breed collaboration. The flexibility and

willingness to compromise with media organizations, that might under

other circumstances be viewed as competitors, is reminiscent of the way

that in the 1970s US media outlets in financial difficulty opened up to

having US newspapers sign joint operating agreements with each other,20

while local television stations began pooling news footage. Other examples

include the independent publishing houses that come together for book

distribution and the alliances of independent bookshops.

Meanwhile, lower barriers to entry mean more startups, resulting in more

competition and ever greater pressure on advertising revenues. As well, it

is not clear to what extent private donors are themselves aggravating the

situation by funding startups that compete with other startups.

There are many outlets in existence (print and online) that probably

would not exist without donor funding. For example: Thisisafrica.com, the

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), ProPublica,

the development pages on the Guardian.com, the health pages in the Mail

& Guardian and many of the startups in Latin America. These outlets are

New Financial Arrangements

What is clear is that donors willing to fund media will find willing takers

at both legacy media and startups. Legacy media outlets have shrunk

in many countries in part due to declining circulation, the aging of the

newspaper-subscribing population, the migration of advertising to the internet,

and increased consumption of online news with lower advertising rates.19 Many

outlets are exploring different ways to make money and are in search of what is

often referred to as “a new business model.” Whether this exists, in what form, and

whether it is possible to find “new” ways to fund quality journalism is not clear.

Many outlets are exploring different ways to make money and are

in search of what is often referred to as “a new

business model.”

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not about to become self-sufficient from advertising or subscriptions; they

will likely remain donor dependent. As one African editor said to us, “self-

sufficiency in the developing world requires getting another donor. It’s

not like advertising will ever cover costs.” On the whole both sides seem

happy with their relationships. There seems to be a match-making process,

as illustrated by the case of the Mail & Guardian’s health desk, whereby

foundations are finding the organizations that are open to their ideas, and

grantees are seeking out donors whose goals are compatible with their own.

Amid the financial crisis in news media, the influence of donors and

NGOs goes beyond the pressure they can exert as grant-makers to media

organizations. Because it is so hard to make a decent living working as a

journalist in many parts of the world, there are many journalists who only work

as journalists part-time. While some media outlets have rules about taking

on consultancies outside of journalism, in poorer countries (and richer ones)

part-time journalists may earn money by freelancing for aid organizations

such as the Department for International Development (DFID) or the United

Nations Development Program (UNDP). In these cases, the journalist are often

doing public relations work for the donor organizations. In this way, NGOs

are increasingly providing “boots on the ground” coverage of international

events.21 Once a journalist is working in this way for an aid agency or donor

organization, the lines between PR work and news content become blurry. We

found examples of this: a journalist who edits a UNDP report may also write

about the report for a local newspaper or give a copy to her friends who work

there so they can cover it in the paper. The journalists may accept trips paid

for by donors who want to take them to see a development project or cover

a particular subject.22 These journalists are in effect receiving donor money

for their work, which can in turn influence the editorial decisions at their news

outlet. In the United States, media outlets have rules about free trips and

consulting due to a potential conflict of interest, but during our research we

found examples of media outlets with no such guidelines. So while this report

focuses on the growing trend of underwriting content directly, it is important

to keep in mind that where journalism is under pressure, donors and NGOs are

finding new avenues for influence.

There are of course many media outlets that remain profitable; in recent

years, there has been notable growth in newspaper circulation in Asia,

primarily in India and China, and more modest increases in Africa and Latin

America.23 Our argument here is simply that financial uncertainty has led

to a willingness to consider new strategies and that the space has opened

for a range of collaborations and partnerships that include more room for

donor funding of content-driven news. Moreover, many of the new startups

are small and so the people covering the news and making editorial

decisions are often the same people doing the fundraising. They are in

constant contact with their funders.

The argument here is simply that financial

uncertainty has led to a willingness to consider

new strategies and that the space has opened for a range of collaborations

and partnerships that include more room

for donor funding of content-driven news.


“More and more foundations are interested in how to give to media

to ensure that journalism remains free and are having a hard time

figuring out how do we give money to media organizations and make

sure they remain free and independent, especially in Europe. I met a

lot of individuals who work for foundations and are interested in how to

give money and how to maintain editorial independence,” said Veronika

Rozmahelova, former director of the Prague Freedom Foundation.

We found many examples of grantees and donors who are getting along

well and have a shared mission. In these cases the grantees feel grateful

for the funding, communication lines are open and—perhaps most

important—both sides share a sense of closeness and purpose. “We’ve

known the team at ICFJ for over ten years. We have a great relationship

with them,” said Carlos Huertas from Connectas Colombia, a non-profit

journalism initiative that promotes transnational cooperation on “key”

development subjects in Latin America.

Same Beds: The Shared Interests Between Foundations and Newsrooms

Private donors ponder the dilemmas raised by their relationship with

grantees, including how best to preserve editorial independence of

their grantees. Of the foundations we spoke to, half agreed with the

question that “safeguarding editorial independence of the media should be

important to donors.”


Part of why the relationships work may be the extensive vetting during

the grant application process. Foundations that have a long and arduous

grant-making process often get to know their applicants well. Media

organizations that do not share the donor’s mission are not given grants.

“We only invest in those with whom we share a mission. We get to know

organizations that we support well, sometimes in conversations up to

a year, and we get them to know us as much as they can as well before

we get into funding relationships to make sure that we agree on what

the overall purpose of the journalism we are supporting is,” says Miguel

Castro, Senior Program Officer, Global Media Partnerships at the Bill &

Melinda Gates Foundation.

The troubling side of this, however, is that grantees are in some cases

shaping their activities in order to attract donor funds. They know that in

order to receive donor funding they have to work on problems that are

priorities for donors. This came up repeatedly during our interviews.

“At the back of our mind, when the donors want to prioritize

accountability issues, inevitably, in order to win this grant, we want to

make sure we are heavy on accountability areas to put in a proposal that

will sail through. It is a subtle consideration, but it is there. You want

to convince them to give it to you. It’s a kind of marketing. It’s a kind

of soft consideration in your mind,” said Charles Odongtho of Wizarts

Foundation, a Kampala-based organization aimed at explaining to the

public the role of parliamentarians.

“Before I pitch them my project, they [the donors] tell me what their

priorities are,” said one Central American journalist.

“The truth is, he who pays the piper calls the tune. If what we do is not

in line with what they fund, then they won’t fund us,” said Juliet Naiga

from the Uganda Journalist Association, who cites independence as the

biggest problem between donors and grantees.

Others said that staying true to their organization’s core activities is

more important than pleasing a demanding donor. Peter Mwesige from

African Centre for Media Excellence, an intermediary organization

in Uganda told us, “Donors must respect our strategic vision; we

don’t do work on certain areas, and we’re not going to do that

because of funding.”

“We don’t discuss editorial coverage, well sometimes we do. We discuss

the pillars of the project and what they would want to finance. The

projects that we search for have to do with who our donors are and what

they want that year. Hivos, Avina, and the World Bank, they’re interested

in government transparency; the Knight Foundation, in innovation,

The troubling side of this, however, is that grantees are in some cases shaping

their activities in order to attract donor funds.

They know that in order to receive donor funding

they have to work on problems that are priorities for donors.


while other programs like Knight Mozilla Open News finance open

softwares within newsrooms,” said one South American journalist whose

organization receives foundation funding.

The relationship may not appear as complicated to donors, who at times

understated the differences between them and media grantees.

“Journalists and advocates are not that different. Both have a

responsibility to not just give information to their audience but to

provide a public service, whether it is to inform citizens to make

thoughtful choices or making them aware of issues that are important

to them,” said Miguel Castro, Senior Program Officer, Global Media

Partnerships at the Gates Foundation.

This view was not unanimously shared by grantees. “Information is a

public good. We provide information so the public is informed and can

make informed decisions. It’s not the job of a journalist to do advocacy

around the issues they expose,” said Stefaans Brümmer from the

amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism, which receives grant

money from foundations (including the Open Society Foundation for

South Africa and the RAITH Foundation), but does not accept money

from governments and companies, or that is earmarked for reporting on

designated subjects.

Still others straddle two worlds: that of the donor and that of the

journalist. Under the leadership of Monique Vila, Thomson Reuters

Foundation has stepped up its reporting and publishing of news as well

as working in media development. ThomsonReuters Foundation now

publishes news about undercovered subjects. The news is distributed

through the Reuters global distribution network and is available

on news.trust.org.

“We are not activists, we are journalists seeking the truth. Our stories

are giving a voice to the voiceless and because of the subjects covered,

are often used by NGOs to advance their advocacy efforts,” Vila said.

“Information is a public good. We provide

information so the public is informed and can make

informed decisions. It’s not the job of a journalist to do advocacy around the

issues they expose.”

— STEFAANS BRÜMMER, amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism

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There are some donors who feel comfortable with their implicit editorial

role and others who do not. Regardless, a clear finding of our research

is that the lines between donor involvement and interference with

editorial independence were unclear. Everyone, it seems, has an opinion

as to what journalists should be doing and we found very different

perceptions of what constitutes interference as opposed to what are

simply donor priorities.

While some donors believe it important to fund coverage on designated

subjects, others feel that it is equally important to support the genre

of investigative journalism in general to stimulate the production of

investigative journalistic content, thereby cementing the role of media as

society’s watchdog. This is the case for the SCOOP programme, which

is a cooperation between International Media Support and the Danish

Association of Investigative Journalists.

“I think the fact that our SCOOP programme does not have

requirements in terms of what topics the stories should cover is a

strength, as focus is instead on promoting the practice of investigative

journalism. Such requirements on content would be restrictive and could

hamper efforts of professional journalistic development for some,” said

program manager Manja Kamwi, from the non-profit media development

organization International Media Support in Copenhagen.

“Donors are increasingly involved in trying to shape editorial content.

From the developmental perspective I understand that donors want

to specifically contribute to certain topics that they think are in need

of support (gender issues, democracy building, peace promotion for

example). But as a journalist, I think this is a scary tendency that

infringes on media’s independence and in Free Press Unlimited’s mind

the independence is crucial for public trust. Donors have to be cautious

Different Dreams: The Blurry Lines that Pose a Threat to Newsroom Independence

Just by deciding to fund coverage of one topic rather than another means

that donors affect newsroom decision-making. A donor who wants coverage

of corruption or health reporting makes a decision about which topic a

media outlet should devote its time to. By funding coverage of one subject

over another, donors set priorities for newsrooms and, by extension, for the

public. Many organizations apply annually for renewal of their grants so donor

priorities constantly hang over the newsroom.

While some donors believe it important to fund coverage on designated subjects, others feel

that it is equally important to support the genre of

investigative journalism in general to stimulate the production of investigative

journalistic content, thereby cementing the role of media

as society’s watchdog.


not to be too interventionist,” said Leon Willems, director of Policy and

Programs at Free Press Unlimited.24

Kamwi’s view is typical of donors who feel that supporting journalism and

promoting strong media is part of larger efforts to help society. Others also

say they try to hold back from directing editorial priorities.

“We try to get our grantees to focus on certain topics, but they are

reluctant to do that. They are reluctant to take funding which is prescriptive

in that sense, which I understand. We tell them our perspective, and what

our points of view are, but if they decide they would rather focus on their

area of work they are not penalized,” said Audrey Elster, from the Raith

Foundation in South Africa, which supports journalism as part of its overall

goals of addressing social injustice and inequality.

The donors we interviewed who give grants to media outlets that are

aligned with donor priorities do not view themselves as interfering with

editorial processes or missions. Many donors feel that as long as they don’t

interfere after the grant is involved then there is no editorial interference.

They discuss their goals in advance with their grantees and as long as

the grantee is ready to cover women or health or education, the donors

consider that to be complete editorial independence.

Donors’ Involvement in Newsroom Decisions

DONORSHow often do you or someone from your organization discuss

editorial coverage with grantees?

Never

Only before the grant is given

Sometimes (4 times a year)

Often (>4 times a year)

Skipped

Never

Only before the grant is given

Sometimes (4 times a year)

Often (>4 times a year)

Skipped

Yes

No

Skipped

INTERMEDIARIESDo your donors have views

as to what kind of news they want your grantees to cover?

GRANTEESHow often do the donors

discuss editorial aspects with you?

5%

29%

62%52%

38%

5%0%

15%

23%

43%

14%

0%

14%


Accordingly, part of what we wanted to find out what was when and how

donors make their preferences known. Donors were asked, “How often do

you or does someone from your organization discuss editorial coverage

with grantees?” All 11 of the donors surveyed replied. Two replied

“never,” three said, “before the grant is given, as part of the vetting/

application process,” and one said “sometimes,” which we defined as

four times a year, after the grant is given and one said “often,” which

we defined as more than four times a year. Four said “other” and then

explained how their relationship works including visits, mentoring and

other hands-on involvement.

We asked intermediary organizations, “Do your donors have views as to

what kind of news they want your grantees to cover?” Of the 10 people

who answered, eight replied “yes” and two said “no.” Our follow up

question was “If yes, at what point during your grant application do they

make it clear?” Five answered and eight skipped the question. Of the

five, three answered “before the application,” one said “during the vetting

process,” and the third replied, “after the grant money was disbursed.”

We asked grantees, “Have funders sought to influence your editorial

coverage?” Fifteen grantees answered the question and of these,

four replied “yes.” Of the four, two said it was after the grant

had been awarded.

In our research we found differing perceptions as to how much

donors try to get involved with the editorial processes and a

different understanding of what constitutes interference and

editorial independence.

Typically, donors reported different levels of involvement in editorial

processes than did the grantees. These differing perceptions may be due

to different understandings of what constitutes involvement in editorial

processes. We also found that each journalist has a line he or she does

not want donors to cross, but each person we interviewed expressed a

different idea as to what that line is.

Some take money for subject areas such as reporting on health but do

not want to be told which stories to cover or how to cover them.

“Editorial aspects, no. Subject matters, yes,” said Laura Zommer from

Chequeado in Argentina, describing her organization’s overall philosophy.

Some organizations accept money for “investigative reporting” or

accountability reporting, but tell donors not to specify which subjects

journalists should cover. Musikilu Mojeed from The Premium Times,

Nigeria, says his donors know what kind of stories their grantees are

writing but aren’t allowed to dictate content.

“We try to get our grantees to focus on certain topics, but they are reluctant to

do that. They are reluctant to take funding which is

prescriptive in that sense…. We tell them our perspective,

and what our points of view are, but if they decide

they would rather focus on their area of work they

are not penalized.”

— AUDREY ELSTER, Raith Foundation in South Africa

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“They fund accountability so they ask us what kind of stories we want to

do, so we give them a general description. But they don’t call to tell us

to say ‘write it this way.’ We can’t allow it and they know that. Donors are

careful with us,” Mojeed explains.

Donor organizations are not monolithic and different parts of the

same organization may have a different understanding of how to

treat journalists. Some parts of a donor organization may be staffed

by former journalists who value editorial independence. Other parts of

an organization take the view that the press coverage done by media

grantees should reflect the interests of the donor organization. PR and

communications departments of donor organizations may have even

stronger views about how the media grantee should cover a subject or

story. We found multiple examples of one part of a donor organization

involving itself in news decisions or coverage by a grantee. Again,

because many of the people receiving money are dealing directly with

donors, journalists and editors are aware of donor preferences.

One point stressed by grantees is that codifying agreements

and making donor expectations clear is essential. Otherwise

misunderstandings can arise.

“Before the first dollar changes hands there should be agreement from

both sides on what should be achieved. If you don’t have that you open

yourself to frustration and problems,” said Eric Chinje, director of the

Africa Media Initiative.

Momi Peralta from La Nación Data in Argentina emphasized “making the

rules of the game clear from the start.”

However, our interviewees suggested that even with agreements, there

is donor involvement in editorial above and beyond what is originally

agreed upon. In the course of our interviews we heard several examples

but, for obvious reasons, our interviewees asked us not to give their

names, names of their organizations or donors or provide any specifics

that could reveal their identity.

We found that grantees experienced three kinds of soft pressure: one

form of pressure by omission and two kinds by commission. Omission

was pressure not to cover a certain story, or not to cover it in a certain

way. Commission came from donors whose support was granted on the

condition of generating coverage of particular subjects. And yet a third

kind of commission came from donors who were not only interested to

see coverage of a particular subject, but to see the coverage done in

a particular way. This is exemplified by the requirement set by the Bill

and Melinda Gates Foundation that South Africa’s Mail & Guardian cover

health via solutions-based journalism, but we found other examples

“Before the first dollar changes hands there should be agreement

from both sides on what should be achieved. If you don’t have that you open

yourself to frustration and problems.”

— ERIC CHINJE, director of the

Africa Media Initiative


of donors insisting on a particular angle for a story, rather than on the

journalistic approach.

An example of this sort of “wordsmithing” pressure was the news outlet

that got funding from one NGO and happened to publish a story about

a development project that included a link to another international NGO

in the same field. According to the editor, the day after that piece was

published they got a call from the funder saying, “if we are paying you

for this campaign, why are you advertising other organizations?” As

the editor who described the experience put it: “If they see the work of

another NGO as competition, then we’re ‘fried’.”

Grantees also told us of donors calling up and suggesting a story idea

or even criticizing a story they had published. Rather than getting angry,

grantees who told us these stories downplayed what had happened.

“There have been times when donors send you an organization, saying

‘hey, so this organization covers organized crime, you should take a look

at them.’ But I take it as any other source of information. They have to

put you in contact with their other allies or their own contacts in order to

build networks,” said Enrique Naveda from Plaza Pública in Guatemala,

adding later: “Sometimes it’s useful, but sometimes it’s not. Sometimes

it improves the reporting, and sometimes it doesn’t make it to the text;

or we even discard those sources beforehand if we see we don’t need

them. Most times we already knew those organizations. The decision is

always up to us and our only concern is the quality of the information.”

In some cases grantees said the pressure did not bother them as they

understood the internal differences in the donor organization.

“I don’t think of it as the Gates Foundation. I think of it as one new comms

person who used to be an actress (not a journalist). In any case I would

have been responsible and done the story thoroughly,” said one editor.

We should note that without a comprehensive content analysis of the

kind that has been used to analyse the relationship between advertisers

and media outlets25 a lack of data on the topic of donor influence will

remain. However, researchers can rely on both the stated aims of the

funders to influence content and the abundance of information available

through qualitative research. Our interviews with journalists and other

grantees have highlighted some of the pressures and examples of them.

Above and beyond direct pressure such as phone calls there are a

variety of indirect ways to shape the media agenda, including the

practice of the aid organizations hiring journalists as consultants or

taking them on trips to see development projects. Our research of

African media coverage of the Millenium Villages26 suggests that these

Grantees also told us of donors calling up and

suggesting a story idea or even criticizing a

story they had published. Rather than getting angry,

grantees who told us these stories downplayed

what had happened.


relationships have a powerful effect on how coverage is shaped. The

shaping of coverage is of course not confined to donors. Governments

and businesses have long tried to influence how they are portrayed.

A final point of sensitivity emerged in our research: the difficulties that

can arise when a donor supports other activities that are opposed to

freedom of expression or has ties to large multinational companies that

are being investigated by a journalist grantee.

This latter dilemma is posed by Peter Heintze from Connecting

Continents, a fund for investigative reporting based in Belgium, an

initiative of Oxfam Novib, an NGO from the Netherlands. Connecting

Continents supports teams of European and African journalists to

promote coverage of governance topics in Africa and has run into two

cases where the multinational corporations whose wrongdoing the

journalists were investigating had partnerships with well known NGOs.

One example was Shell Oil’s partnership with Oxfam NOVIB.

Describing the dilemmas Heitze said, “There is often tension between

donors and journalists. NGOs fear that journalists not only find abuses by

businesses, but also find wrongdoings by NGOs. That is a risk: NGOs also

make mistakes or are confronted with awful dilemmas. The communication

department [of the NGO] gets worried, but the general director

understands. In this case, Oxfam had to clear it with their communication

team. Another dilemma for NGOs might rise when a journalist finds

wrongdoings by a big multi-national enterprise, that is also a partner of

the NGO. Oxfam Novib for instance looks actively for partnerships with big

Dutch MNEs [multi-national enterprises] like Shell, working together on

good governance and decent work. Such a partnership can grow, especially

in difficult developing countries, like fragile states. A good relation with a

powerful MNE can be very relevant for the work and even the safety of NGO

staff in fragile countries. Would you as an NGO want to support publications

on wrongdoings by MNEs, if that same MNE is relevant for the work or

safety of staff-members in certain countries? In the end the right thing wins

but it always will be a struggle.”

In cases where there are differences of opinion between donor

and grantee as to what or how a subject should be covered both

sides seem to struggle to come up with a solution. Such solutions

and disagreements seem to be handled on a case-by-case basis.

Sometimes the discussion is taken higher up the hierarchy of the donor

organization. Sometimes it is resolved by the grant manager and the

grantee. What is clear is that this is a grey area with no standard way of

resolving disputes.

“There is often tension between donors and

journalists. NGOs fear that journalists not only

find abuses by businesses, but also find wrongdoings

by NGOs. That is a risk: NGOs also make

mistakes or are confronted with awful dilemmas.”

— PETER HEINTZE, Connecting Continents


Double standards?This different understanding of what is acceptable involvement is

particularly important in places where media outlets are donor dependent

and where a lack of alternate sources of funding is a serious problem. In

poor countries, media outlets may be more likely to accept requests from

donors that they would decline if they could afford to say no.

Donors should consider this question of different standards for

journalists and media organizations in developing countries and perhaps

not ask organizations or outlets in developing countries to do things

they would not ask of journalists in more prosperous parts of the world.

Jo Weir, the former Director of Journalism Training at the Thomson

Reuters Foundation, which organized journalism trainings for decades

and in later years focused on subjects chosen and funded by donors,

points to the dangers of a double standard between developing and

prosperous countries. “It’s too easy for donors with money to ask

journalists from poor countries to do things that would not be expected

from a US or European journalist. No Reuters journalist would ever go on

a training course and guarantee writing an article on a subject and we

found it really difficult to tell other journalists they had to,” Weir recalled.

Others note that as media outlets continue to receive money from a

range of donors who do not have a media background and want to see

instant results, the demands could become more difficult to manage.

Said one African editor, “All donors have different objectives so they

could want different things. What would happen if donors wanted

different things for example if one donor wants coverage of health

issues in South Africa and the other donor wants us to go beyond

South Africa’s boundaries and cover health issues across Africa?

How do you balance the number of stories on each region so that

both donors are happy?”

She notes that new entrants in the world of philanthropy may not

understand how newsrooms work and that is a special danger

for developing countries. “You may have donors with unrealistic

expectations who want you to advocate for something in a certain way.

In the developing world print media is so desperate that they will say

yes to things they should not say yes to.”

Others note that as media outlets continue to receive money from a range of donors who do not have a media

background and want to see instant results, the demands could become

more difficult to manage.


Others have called for such codes of conduct, including Nick Lemann,

the former Dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of

Journalism, who published a piece in the January 28, 2016 issue of The

New Yorker calling for codes of conduct among organizations that take

donor funding.27

In our research we were unable to find examples of donors28 getting

together to discuss shared guidelines for safeguarding editorial

independence among their grantees. There have been meetings of

donors, and donors sometimes coordinate their funding efforts, but in

our interviews, media development experts told us that they don’t know

of an effort to get donors to adopt codes of conduct that would include

protection of editorial independence as part of grant making.

Despite this lack of past efforts, our research found widespread interest

in the idea of voluntary codes of conduct.

Every donor we surveyed replied “yes” to the question, “Would voluntary,

standardized guidelines for donors or grantees be helpful?” Of the

intermediary organizations we surveyed 12 answered yes to the question

and one skipped it. Not one intermediary organization said no. Of the

25 grantees who filled out the question, 17 said voluntary, standardized

guidelines would be helpful, two said “no” and eight skipped the questions.

Many of the people we interviewed, however, said that such efforts

at coordination would be difficult and that donors would resist in

part because they need to follow their own internal guidelines on

grant making and cannot sign on to external ones that may be at

odds with the rules of their Foundation. It is also hard for foundations

to coordinate in a systematic and continuous way over decades as

leadership changes at the major foundations can take years to absorb.

For this reason we think that standardized guidelines could help provide

stability in grant making and protect both grantees and donors from the

Towards Codes of Conduct and Best Practices

The new world of donor funding of media content addresses a serious need

for in-depth coverage of subjects that affect society. At a time when media

faces financial pressures in many parts of the world, donors have stepped

in to create a public good, and grantees are grateful. However, as mentioned,

we found that grantees and donors alike feel it may be time to come up with

some codes of conduct aimed at promoting transparency and safeguarding

newsroom independence.

In our research we were unable to find examples

of donors getting together to discuss shared

guidelines for safeguarding editorial independence among their grantees.

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vagaries of personnel changes at the top. Typically a new foundation

president takes a prolonged period of time to study and understand the

organization and then decides to move in a somewhat new direction

while building on the strengths and achievements of the organization.

This shift in direction involves restructuring the foundation staff and

changing the grant-making portfolio in order to make sure it’s aligned

with the goals of the new foundation president. These periods of

restructuring can be difficult for all concerned and lead to delays in

decision making. Having some ingrained practices and codes in place

regarding grant making to media outlets could ensure more continuity

even as the foundation changes.

One quote sums up the philosophy that we believe should underpin

grantmaking to media outlets whether done directly from a donor

or through an intermediary organization. In The Reconstruction of

American Journalism: Len Downie Jr. and Michael Schudson write

that “Grants should be awarded in a transparent, public competition.

The criteria for grants should be journalistic quality, local relevance,

innovation in news reporting, and the capacity of the news organization,

small or big, to carry out the reporting.”29

The best practices we saw around the world could work well as a

starting point for discussion about possible recommendations. While we

did not find uniform practices for handling grant money and preserving

editorial independence we found an array of thoughtful procedures

around the world—particularly in Scandinavia—that could be replicated.

Would voluntary, standardized guidelines for donors or grantees be helpful?

DONORS INTERMEDIARIES GRANTEES

100%

Yes No Skipped

“Grants should be awarded in a transparent, public

competition. The criteria for grants should be

journalistic quality, local relevance, innovation

in news reporting, and the capacity of the news

organization, small or big, to carry out the reporting.”

– The Reconstruction of American Journalism


General funding, not earmarksMany organizations, such as universities try to get general support

funds that they can use to underwrite the activities they think are

important. When fundraising from a private donor, foundation or

company, universities prefer to receive grants that go into a general

pool for supporting research. That way, the academics at the university

can decide which research areas they will pursue. When they fundraise

to endow a chair, it is with the understanding that the donor will not

have a say in who is appointed, though the subfield in which the scholar

works is often specified. Universities strive to make the specification as

broad as possible.

Unsurprisingly, many media grantees would prefer to get unrestricted

funds rather than support earmarked for coverage for certain topics.

They worry, too, that donors may not be in the best position to know

what subjects most need coverage, especially when the donor is already

wedded to a particular cause.

Evelyn Groenik from AIPC-Zam says that too often journalism

organizations have to bend to the will of donors who have strong ideas

about what they want covered, for example reporting on themes such as

the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. The consequence

is that journalists have to package their work so as to make it fit donor

agendas. It also means that important subjects—and ones that matter

to local communities—are not covered because overseas donors have

not thought of them. Instead of deciding in advance what should be

covered, Groenik suggests that donors listen to journalists on the

ground: “Couldn’t, for example, donors just ask one what one’s subject

is and— of course—request an explanation as to why it is relevant? Why

do donors think they already know everything?”

However, Charles Lewis notes that US donors are now less likely

to give unrestricted funding than they once were. “A lot of large

foundation funders will flatly state in writing that they don’t give

general support funding, and will only support specific projects within

their broad thematic program areas of interest. So instead of broad

general support for respected non-profit news organizations, these

muckraking entrepreneurs necessarily have nimbly adapted, recognizing

that actually all journalism involves specific thematic or ‘beat” news

coverage within broad thematic subject areas such as the environment,

health, political accountability, and even more broadly, the state of

democracy, public discourse and civil society, etc. It thus is possible to

receive ostensibly general support within a large subject area, without

compromising the integrity of the journalism. As a result, in recent years

there has been a fascinating kabuki dance of sorts, between the new

“A lot of large foundation funders will flatly state

in writing that they don’t give general support

funding, and will only support specific projects

within their broad thematic program areas of interest.”

— CHARLES LEWIS, American University School

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non-profit news publishers desperately seeking financial sustenance

and the philanthropic institutions—desperately seeking ‘measurable

outcomes’ but also recognizing the reality that without accurate,

independent information, you don’t have communities or an informed

citizenry, vital to the health of democracy itself,” Lewis said in an email.

Creating a wall between funding and editorialThere are several ways to separate the fundraising and editorial

functions of media outlets and also donor organizations.

1. Firewalls at media outlets

Since it began in 1989, the Center for Public Integrity, which houses the

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, has operated with

a journalistic firewall between the newsroom and the Board of Directors,

which means the Board does not see stories before they are published.

This is similar in some ways to the wall between advertising and editorial

in legacy newspapers.

Paul Steiger, Executive Chairman of ProPublica’s board of directors,

described in an email how things work at ProPublica: “At ProPublica, our

launch donors enthusiastically embraced a policy, which was approved

unanimously by directors at both of the first two board meetings, that

bars donors or directors from seeking to influence coverage. They are

free to suggest stories, to either the editor in chief or the managing

editor, but the decision on whether to pursue or publish is left to the

editor in chief. Directors and donors don’t know whether a story is being

worked on until it is published. Our chairman, Herb Sandler, is the most

vigorous enforcer of this rule, reminding editors not to disclose stories in

the works when they may get a bit over-exuberant in their enthusiasm.”

2. Donors outsourcing decision making about grants

Creating walls between fundraising and editorial decisions may

be difficult to implement for smaller news organizations with low

budgets and few staff. But it could also be implemented on the side

of the funders. For example, if foundations gave grantee management

responsibilities over to a semi-independent body, perhaps a steering

committee made up of professionals from the industry, they could put

some distance between the programmatic side of the foundation and

the media funding side of the foundation. This, of course, is the reason

that some donors bring in intermediary groups to implement grant

making to local media outlets.

Creating walls between fundraising and editorial decisions may be difficult to implement for smaller news organizations with

low budgets and few staff. But it could also be implemented on the

side of the funders.


Foundations that want to set up a separate committee to do their grant

making in journalism would need to be clear about how they categorize

their grant funding, recognizing media funding as such, and not

grouping it together with other topic-area funding. Foundations could

act as trustees, giving grant decision-making power to a committee

of representative leaders from prominent news organizations that

independently reviewed applications and came together to discuss final

decisions. It is important, though, that the foundation, in evaluating

the success of the journalism program, judge it on the quality of the

coverage, including the impact it has had.

Steven Waldman, who has served as senior adviser to the chairman of

the Federal Communications Commission in the United States, wrote

about the possibility of pooling foundation funds for local media at

the state level in a similar fashion: “Some have therefore suggested

creating state-level foundation collaboratives. This would provide

a level of political insulation, since a third body, one level removed,

would be making the funding decisions rather than the individual

local foundation.”30

Moving final decision-making powers to an independent committee

could also help alleviate any worry news organizations have about

needing to change their reporting in order to get their grant renewed.

Worry about whether a donor will continue to provide support in

the next funding cycle could lead to self-censorship. Additionally,

outsourcing decision-making to a body of professionals working in

the targeted field could bring about more robust, critical evaluation of

applicants. Specialized committees will have more first-hand knowledge

about what to look for in grantees and would be best placed to make

decisions in accordance with the goals of the foundation.

3. Intermediary groups

Other funders give grants to intermediary organizations that then

allocate them to journalists. Some of these intermediary organizations

exist with the explicit purpose of providing a buffer between donors

and grantees. While the role of intermediaries can add another layer of

bureaucracy to the process, they play an invaluable role as they have

local knowledge and expertise in media. They also add a layer of opacity

in cases where it could be dangerous for a journalist to report getting

direct funding from a foreign organization. (Of course, the objective of

the intermediary organization is not the circumvention of national laws

or to cloak the advancement of foreign interests. It is essential that the

intermediary have true independence. We note below that there is some

controversy over the extent of transparency in such situations. Open

Moving final decision-making powers to an

independent committee could also help alleviate

any worry news organizations have about

needing to change their reporting in order to get

their grant renewed.


Society Foundation is one group that gives grants to intermediaries who

then give support to local journalism outlets.

Two intermediary groups try to ensure that the stories they fund will be

published: the African Investigative Publishing Network-Zam partnership

engages with media houses from the inception of story projects, in

order to achieve as wide as possible international publication. Similarly,

before giving a grant, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting requires

a distribution plan, which should include a strong signal of interest

from an outlet.

4. Peer Review Committees

Some of the groups that do grant making to journalists make sure they

have groups of journalists (not donors) deciding who gets the money.

One example is International Media Support (IMS) based in

Copenhagen. IMS works with the Danish and Swedish Associations

of Investigative Journalism (FUJ) on the programme SCOOP, which

has an open bidding process, where journalists can respond to a call

for applications. All working with the programme assess and discuss

the applications, but the final decision to support an investigation is

taken by representatives from the investigative journalism associations

to ensure that support is granted based on journalistic criteria for

investigative journalism.

In some cases, the names of the panelists are not disclosed or are

disclosed after the fact so as to avoid lobbying and pressure on donors.

In a similar approach, some organizations place experts on their boards

who are not journalists to make decisions about grants to support

media. Foundations in this group include the Independent and Public

Spirited Media Foundation in India and South Africa’s Raith foundation.

Transparency Organizations that are transparent consider it a best practice and

believe the practice should spread. They are of course cognizant of the

dangers to journalists who work in countries where grants from foreign

donors could put the journalists in danger. But they believe whatever

can be transparent should be.

“Transparency, transparency, transparency. Transparency in publishing

the call, in the application and in the selection process,” said Knut

Neumayer at the Institute for Human Sciences in Austria.

Organizations that are transparent consider it a

best practice and believe the practice should spread.


DISCLOSURE AND TRANSPARENCY

Not only are there no universal codes of conduct or standards but there are not even universally agreed-upon principles. One might imagine that media outlets and their funders would agree on disclosure of funding sources and transparency of funding but even this subject—which one would think of as low-hanging fruit—turns out to be surprisingly controversial.

Practices vary widely. The majority of donors we spoke to said their organization decides on whether or not their grantees should disclose, and some said they discuss it with their grantees. A smaller group said they leave the question up to the grantees.

Ten donors answered the question about who decides whether to disclose funding:

Our Decision 5

Grantees Decide 2

Something we Discuss Together

3

Of the donors that decide, some mandate disclosure. Some do not. Some governments want disclosure, and some do not. So grantees navigate a host of laws and guidelines, many of which are contradictory.

The Code of Conduct of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism requires media outlets to disclose the grants they receive and to not let donors determine the coverage. The Investigative News Network has similar guidelines for its members.

The funders of the African Center for Media Excellence in Kampala “are posted in the annual report, except for those that don’t want us to do that, we have two American funders that prefer that we don’t disclose their identity. The country requires us to do so, so we disclose it to the government, but not publicly in our annual report,” said ACME director Peter Mwesige.

Many respondents favored disclosure. “We think if we want government to be transparent and

corporate sector to be transparent, but then we have to be clean and transparent ourselves. People here tend to disclose and we think it’s a good thing,” said Audrey Elster of the Raith Foundation in South Africa.

“We demand that our grantees disclose, when a story is published, that they got funding from the Journalism Fund. We have to tell where we get the money from for transparency and credibility reasons. The grantees have to disclose where they get the money from for the same reason. If we journalists demand transparency from the people we write about then we too need to be transparent. The Journalismfund.eu standard hopefully inspires a journalistic professional consideration about funding and transparency, editorial independence and journalistic credibility,” said Brigitte Alfter of the Journalismfund.eu in Denmark.

“It’s part of our ethical code. There have been times where we have rejected money because they didn’t want us to disclose. When Martin (now director of Nomada) was at the lead, we rejected money,” said Enrique Nevada from Plaza Pública in Guatemala.

Others worry about putting grantees in danger and say they could be at risk if it were known who their funders were and resist disclosing their donors. Practices vary widely across countries and organizations.

Getting a universal code of conduct is difficult, says Charles Lewis, an American University professor who has founded or co-founded several non-profit organizations and has been involved with non-profit news media for 27 years. In 2010, he formally proposed the ethics and transparency standards policy31 for the Institute for Non-profit News (formerly the Investigative News Network, which he co-founded), a membership requirement for the 110 non-profit INN member organizations. “Disclosure itself is complicated even in the US, outside even more so. There are no standards. Whatever standards we have here have taken decades to develop. Overseas it is even more chaotic,” Lewis said.


Making it easier to apply for grantsOne subject that came up repeatedly in interviews was not directly

related to our research questions about media independence. However

it does relate to empowerment of grantees. We were told repeatedly

that grantees want information about what funding is available and

how to apply. Opacity works to the disadvantage of organizations in

developing countries that do not have the same resources and access

as journalists in more prosperous countries.

“It’s not always easy finding information about what’s out there, for

what kind of project, for what region, when are the deadlines, when the

funders have opened another call for applications. In general, there’s not

an easy way nor is it obvious to us where to look for these opportunities,

even though they may be out there,” said Jordy Meléndez from Factual in

Mexico, which is aimed at strengthening journalism in Latin America.

Others felt that the application process is so complicated that it

discriminates against outsiders.

Mariana Niembro from Borde Politico in Mexico had a few opinions on

the process of working on a USAID Project: “The application process—

it seems to me—is discriminatory because there are organizations that

are experts in filling out these complex, technical RFPs. No one helps

you. And that’s no way to fairly compete.”

They also hated the unpredictability and sense that one’s ability to

get funding to carry out their journalism work is subject to a non-

profit’s stability and strategy

“The main problem is generally the unpredictability when it comes time

to renew the grant. There’s always cases of donors having less money

available because of internal changes, or next year there are no more

funds, or the other classic is the ‘our funding priorities have changed’

and boom, that’s it. When the donor changes strategy, it’s a goodbye

because my newsroom will not change our editorial priorities,” said Jose

Luis Sanz from El Faro of El Salvador.

We were told repeatedly that grantees want

information about what funding is available and

how to apply. Opacity works to the disadvantage of

organizations in developing countries that do not have

the same resources and access as journalists in more

prosperous countries.


Still, donor-funded journalism presents real conflicts of interest such

as editorial bias, influence by donors and self-editing by reporters

attempting to please donors. These impediments to objective

reporting do not serve the public in the end, and pose a threat to news

independence in their own right.

To safeguard the benefits of these partnerships while mitigating their risks,

this report highlights several factors need to be addressed. These include:

■■ A lack of transparency and need for disclosure: what works are being

funded, and by whom?

■■ Editorial interference and foundations’ influence on subjects and

angles covered by journalists.

■■ A universal standard spelling out editorial guidelines and parameters

for the foundation-media relationship.

While our research brought to light much information about the world

of donor-funded journalism, there remain unanswered questions.

Will foundations and non-profits keep giving? If so, will most

investigative reporting and reporting on matters of public good such

as public health or criminal justice or international development be

funded by foundations?

What will this relationship look like in the future? Why should donors

have to disclose and not advertisers? Arrangements with donors can

be codified, but today media houses do not write down agreements

with advertisers and many of the old practices of keeping newsrooms

isolated from advertisers are gone.

Conclusion: Risks and Opportunities for Media Development

The practice of foundations underwriting journalistic content on topics of

social concern presents both opportunities and risks for media organizations

working in the Global South. Many non-profit foundations largely have

progressive missions that ostensibly align with journalists’ instincts to serve the

public good. And the funding that these arrangements provide can be a vital to

the survival of independent news organizations in an era where the traditional

journalistic business model—fragile as it has always been—is being shattered.

Still, donor-funded journalism presents real conflicts of interest such

as editorial bias, influence by donors and self-editing by reporters attempting

to please donors.


Questions that warrant further study include:

■■ How have donor-grantee relationship worked in the past? A number

of NGOs have funded media since the 19th century. How did

those relationships work? How did they ensure that the media

promoted their views?

■■ What can we learn from other organizations that rely on the same

model and retain intellectual freedom, e.g., universities that rely on

grant funding for research?

■■ How long will donors keep giving to media? In a “results-based”

world, will they only do so as long as it promotes the particular point

of view of the donors?

■■ To what extent is the lack of coordination by donors in developing

countries leading to the launch of large numbers of startups which

compete with each other and then fold after just a few years?

Funding quality journalism and giving reporters the resources to carry

out important work is critical. Many of the publications mentioned in this

paper cover important stories overlooked by mainstream publications,

and many of the outlets would not exist without foundations. But as

direct funding of news content by private foundations grows, and with it

editorial influence, it is crucial to have a thorough understanding of how

this financial model is changing news coverage. Following best practices

can help to ensure that direct funding of news content remains a source

of strength for independent media—not a marriage of convenience, but

an equal partnership.

But as direct funding of news content by private

foundations grows, and with it editorial

influence, it is crucial to have a thorough

understanding of how this financial model is

changing news coverage.

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Endnotes1 https://www.edx.org/bio/anya-schiffrin2 Solutions-based journalism is a form of narrative journalism

in which the journalist not only documents a pressing issue, or problem, but makes an effort to describe the different actions that have been taken to address the problem, and evaluates whether it has been successful or not.

3 Colombia’s Victim’s Law provides the right to restitution for those who have been driven from their land by violence.

4 See for example: Tom Rosenstiel, William Buzenberg, Marjorie Connelly, and Kevin Loker, Charting New Ground: The Ethical Terrain of Non-profit Journalism (Arlington: American Press Institute, 2016); and Ed Fouhy, “Foundations: Nurturing Journalistic Values or Threatening Independence?” Civic Catalyst Newsletter, Winter (1997).

5 The grant descriptions for each individual grant were reviewed to determine whether the funds were given with the express objective of producing news or other news-related content on a topic of the donor’s choosing (direct influence), or whether the funds might indirectly influence news content; this might include by giving money to advocacy groups to raise the public profile of a given topic, or by training journalists to report more effectively on a chosen topic.

6 Martin Scott, Media and Development (London: Zed Books, 2014), 13.

7 “Profiles in Media Development Funding.” Center for International Media Assistance. http://www.cima.ned.org/donor-profiles/

8 Tom Rosenstiel, William Buzenberg, Marjorie Connelly and Kevin Loker, “Charting new ground: The Ethical Terrain of non-profit journalism.” American Press Institute. https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/non-profit-news/

9 See http://foundationcenter.org/gainknowledge/research/keyfacts2014/foundation-focus.html

10 Eduardo González Cauhapé-Cazaux and Shanthi Kalathil, Official Development Assistance for Media: Figures and Findings (Center for International Media Assistance and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2015). https://www.oecd.org/dac/governance-peace/docs/CIMA.pdf

11 This figure was calculated using data available from the Foundation Center for 2013 and 2014: www.foundationcenter.org.

12 Brenda Henry-Sanchez and Anna Koob, Growth in Foundation Support for Media in the United States (New York, Foundation Center, 2013).

13 See Rodney Benson, “The American Journalistic Crisis and the Foundation ‘Solution’,” Working Paper; and Mary Myers, Funding for Media Development by Major Donors Outside the United States (Washington DC: Center for International Media Assistance, 2009).

14 David Conrad, “The Freelancer–NGO Alliance,” Journalism Studies, 16, no. 2, 275-288.

15 Shanthi Kalathil, A Slowly Shifting Field: Understanding Donor Priorities in Media Development

16 For information about individual donors please see their websites or this set of profiles: http://www.cima.ned.org/donor-profiles/ Eduardo González Cauhapé-Cazaux and Shanthi Kalathil, “Official Development Assistance for Media: Figures and Findings A Report by CIMA and the OECD.”

Center for International Media Assistance, March 2015. http://www.cima.ned.org/resource/official-development-assistance-for-media-figures-and-findings/. For a full list of Development Assistance Committee member countries, see http://www.oecd.org/dac/dacmembers.htm

17 Rodney Benson, “Are Foundations the Solution to the American Journalistic Crisis?” NYU Media Ownership Project Working Paper 2016-001, March 2016, 10.

18 Mark Nelson,“What are Media Development Donors Funding?” Center for International Media Assistance, July 20, 2016 http://www.cima.ned.org/blog/media-development-donors-funding/

19 Michelle Foster, Media Feast, News Famine: Ten Global Advertising Trends That Threaten Independent Journalism (Washington DC, The Center for International Media Assistance, 2017).

20 Legalized under the 1970 Newspaper Preservation Act.

21 Matthew Powers, “The New Boots on the Ground: NGOs in the Changing Landscape of International News.” Journalism, 17 (4): 1-17.

22 Audrey Ariss, Michelle Chahine and Anya Schiffrin, “Bloggers, Celebrities, and Economists: News Coverage of the Millenium Villages Project,” in Africa’s Media Image in the 21st Century: From the “Heart of Darkness” to “Africa Rising,” edited by Bunce, Franks and Paterson (Routledge 2016)

23 WAN-IFRA, World Press Trends, 35.

24 FPU is a media development organization headquartered in Amsterdam which works to improve the climate for and quality of journalism around the world in conjunction with local partners.

25 Rafael Di Tella and Ignacio Franceschelli, “Government Advertising and Media Coverage of Corruption Scandals,” American Economic Journal, October 2011: 119-151. Luigi Zingales, “Are Newspapers Captured by Banks? Evidence from Italy” Promarket: The blog of the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, May 12, 2016.

26 Audrey Ariss, Michelle Chahine and Anya Schiffrin, “Bloggers, Celebrities, and Economists: News Coverage of the Millenium Villages Project,” by in Africa’s Media Image in the 21st Century: From the “Heart of Darkness” to “Africa Rising” edited by Bunce, Franks and Paterson (Routledge 2016)

27 http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-code-of-ethics-for-journalism-non-profits

28 Including convenings organized by Stephen Salyer and the Salzburg Global Seminar in 2008 and 2009 and the October 2012 meeting aimed at sharing donor practices held at Pocantico, New York, by the Center for International Media Assistance.

29 Len Downie Jr. and Michael Schudson, “The Reconstruction of American Journalism.” The Committee to Protect Journalists, October 19, 2009. http://www.cjr.org/reconstruction/the_reconstruction_of_american_1.php

30 Waldman, Steven. “The Information Needs of Communities: the changing media landscape in a broadband age”. Federal Communications Commission, 2011.

31 https://inn.org/for-members/membership-standards/

https://www.edx.org/bio/anya-schiffrin

http://www.cima.ned.org/donor-profiles/


https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/non-profit-news/

https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/non-profit-news/

http://foundationcenter.org/gainknowledge/research/keyfacts2014/foundation-focus.html

http://foundationcenter.org/gainknowledge/research/keyfacts2014/foundation-focus.html

https://www.oecd.org/dac/governance-peace/docs/CIMA.pdf

https://www.oecd.org/dac/governance-peace/docs/CIMA.pdf

www.foundationcenter.org



http://www.cima.ned.org/resource/official-development-assistance-for-media-figures-and-findings/

http://www.cima.ned.org/resource/official-development-assistance-for-media-figures-and-findings/

http://www.oecd.org/dac/dacmembers.htm

http://www.cima.ned.org/blog/media-development-donors-funding/

http://www.cima.ned.org/blog/media-development-donors-funding/

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-code-of-ethics-for-journalism-non-profits

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-code-of-ethics-for-journalism-non-profits

http://www.cjr.org/reconstruction/the_reconstruction_of_american_1.php

http://www.cjr.org/reconstruction/the_reconstruction_of_american_1.php

https://inn.org/for-members/membership-standards/

Center for International Media AssistanceNATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY

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WASHINGTON, DC 20004

PHONE: (202) 378-9700

EMAIL: [email protected]

URL: http://cima.ned.org

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